Groß Pampau, GR, c. 500,000 BP, Human Heads, Skulls / f)pamphead8

Identified as 'man's head'.

Comment: A motif found not only at Pampau, but also at the later Hamburg-Wittenburgen site and elsewhere in NW Europe, is a male head with 'one-eye open and one-eye closed.' If so, this is has an absolutely extraordinary analogue, the figure of Odin in Germanic-Norse mythology, where the motif signifies the vision quest for inner or spiritual wisdom and healing. Could it be that this Odin motif is at least several hundred thousand years old and survived in the psyche of NW Europe for such an exceedingly long time?

Photo © Stichting Archaeologische Berichten. Collection Ursel Benekendorff. Benekendorff, U. (1990). From the information recorder stone to a picture book of the stone age. Archaeologische Berichten 20:3.